Premium
Long‐term effects of differential early rearing in rhesus macaques: Behavioral reactivity in adulthood
Author(s) -
Corcoran Christopher A.,
Pierre Peter J.,
Haddad Tyler,
Bice Christina,
Suomi Stephen J.,
Grant Kathleen A.,
Friedman David P.,
Bennett Allyson J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.20613
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , primate , behavioral inhibition , anxiety , differential effects , physiology , persistence (discontinuity) , medicine , neuroscience , psychiatry , geotechnical engineering , engineering
Adverse early experiences are associated with a range of deleterious health outcomes in humans, including higher risk for affective disorders. Studies using a long‐standing model of nonhuman primate model of early adversity have demonstrated that nursery‐reared (NR) monkeys exhibit alterations in multiple aspects of biobehavioral development; however, few studies have evaluated the persistence of socioaffective behavioral changes through adulthood. We evaluated the effects of early rearing experience on adult animals' response to a well‐validated assessment of anxiety‐like behavior, the human intruder paradigm (HIP). We tested 22 rhesus monkeys who were either nursery‐reared (NR) or reared with their mothers (mother‐reared; MR). NR monkeys were inhibited in their behavior compared to MR monkeys, with reduced locomotion and exploratory behaviors. NR animals showed a marginal increase in freezing. Together these findings demonstrate that the consequences of differential infant rearing experience on socioaffective behavior persist into adulthood, with evidence of greater inhibition in NR monkeys. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals,Inc. Dev Psychobiol 54: 546–555, 2012.